Emergent
by Nobody loves my living room
Summary: When Tris wakes up after supposedly dying, she doesn't know where she is or how she got there, and after hearing that she's not dead after all, and is being kept for use of experiments with David, she has to find her way back home. Find out what happens to her over the next year/two years before she can make it back with the help of an unexpected companion. First fanfic ever :)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I wake with a start. Around me is a small plain room with four white walls and a glass ceiling. There's a bed at one side of the room and an iron door across from me. I lie on the floor.

 _Where am I?_ I think to myself. I don't remember much, and my head feels cloudy and painful and my body aches all over. Judging by the dim light coming through the roof, it must be evening, or morning, I can't tell; I don't have a watch on me. Again. I prop myself up on one elbow, my other hand pressed against my forehead, and slowly drag myself up to a sitting position. _What happened?_ My thoughts slowly gather together in my mind and I remember something about my brother and a weapons lab, in some place that's not my home. My home; Chicago. _Chicago?_

Something in the top right corner of this room - wherever it is, and I am – catches my attention. A small red flashing light, coming from a small grey cylinder with a black screen. A camera. Which, of course, is pointed at me. I stare at it, letting the memories come back to me, scattered. Weapons lab, lab, erudite, captured, _captured?_ That doesn't seem fitting right now. I should be… somewhere. Somewhere else. I sigh, confused, and turn away from the camera. I decide to stare at my hands instead. They have blood on them. Stained with the dry, deadly, crimson coloured liquid. Deadly… dead. Me. Blood, mine, maybe…

The pieces come together and slowly I remember. The weapons lab, in the bureau, I went in there instead of my brother. I thought I would live, but I didn't. I think I went into there to release the memory serum, and I did, but someone was there. And then I was on the ground, with my blood spilling out on the tiles before me. Blood. ' _Blood is a strange colour_ ' I remember thinking. I look back down at my dirty hands and just as I whisper 'why am I not dead?' to myself, the door bangs open and a woman stands in the doorway.

This woman has a small head and creased skin. Her brown hair is slightly grey at the roots and is pulled into a bun at the back of her head, and her eyes are green and glassy. She wears black jeans and a red t-shirt under her long white jacket, which makes me think of the people at erudite headquarters, with their glasses and blue clothing and the girls' silver hair clips, and the eye that symbolled their faction and feels like it is always watching me. She comes into the room and closes the door behind her. The sunlight is more like an orange glow now and I see a faint shadow on the opposite wall of a tree; a tree? A tall tree. She sits down on the bed and looks me up and down. "Tris, yes?" she says, and all I can make out in reply is, "what?" because that's the only thing I can think right now, and see, and hear, because I'm upset and tired but not sleepy and just confused and I'm sure that this is all too much to take right now. So I just sit there and stare at her whilst let a tear fall down my cheek.

"Hmm." She says and places her clipboard on her lap. She's still looking at me, her head tilted sideways a little. "Maybe we should take you to the bathrooms, and for a little walk around outside. That should do you some good. I don't suppose you know anything about what's going on, but there'll be plenty of time for explanations tomorrow. Come on then." She stands, and offers me her hand, which I stare at as well. I take it after a few seconds whilst attempting to heave myself to my feet. "I'm Naomi." She says. "We're not in the Bureau anymore, or Chicago, we're in a different place. We're still in the USA, in the same country, but in a different state, it's called Oregon."

"Oh" I say. I don't think I properly caught any of that. She releases my hand and gently wipes a tear from my face. Though her facial expression seems very serious and her mouth is still pressed into its hard line, her eyes are thoughtful. They remind me of crystals, and of my mother. My beautiful mother, in her abnegation grey and hidden dauntless tattoos, her grey eyes… my selfless mother. She was there when I died, and I asked her about my friends, and Tobias and… Tobias. "TOBIAS!" I yell weakly at her "where is he? What have you done with him? What-

"Shh! Tobias is not to be mentioned. Now, let's go!" she says and retakes my hand, half pulling me out of the room into a similar looking hallway.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

' _Maybe I am dead'_ I think to myself whilst washing off the stains on my hands and arms. My parents always told me when I was little that, after we died, we would go to a peaceful place high above the clouds to rest with God. This doesn't feel how I thought it would feel. That was heaven, and no matter how bad our sins, we would all go there to be forgiven. ' _Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here? I want to be. I can. I believe it.'_ I thought, and my mother carried me into her embrace. Maybe I deserve to die, to go to a better place, but I know that that is selfish to believe because of all the people I have left behind. Christina, Cara, Caleb, and mainly, Tobias, along with others who will mourn like Zeke and possibly Shauna. But it was for the best, and if I am dead, then there are people I will be greeted by again: My parents, Marlene, Lynn, Uriah, Will, Al, Tori, and more. One day I will be greeted by my currently living friends again.

I was killed because I was shot, though I never intended for that to happen. My intention was to try my hardest to survive the death serum, which I did, release the memory serum, which I did, and come back home with the war finally over and start a new happy life. Although I knew there was a high chance my divergence wouldn't save me, I was still happy enough to make the sacrifice. I slip my black jacket off my shoulders and check myself over to find the bullet wounds, but when I've searched every limb and looked in the mirror, there aren't any. Not a single one. No bandages, nor a single plaster either, which doesn't make any sense.

As I walk out of the bathroom, what I really want to ask Naomi is 'what is the time?' because all the people and death is spinning my head around. I also feel a little dizzy, like I've been drugged. I bend my knees and lean over, resting my hands on my thighs and breathing heavily. Naomi isn't here, so I take the chance to walk away and carry on along the hallway.

When I came out of my room, we walked down a short hallway which turned into a glass hallway. It turns out that this whole place was built in the middle of a forest, and it's high up too, so you can see out over the treetops. Apparently it looks even more beautiful when it's snowing. I realised that at the very edge of the forest and behind my room - which is more like a prison cell - is somewhere they call the beach. I'd never seen a beach before, but back at the bureau when Zoe showed us a map of the world, she showed us which parts of it were oceans and seas. If I could find a way out of here then I'd go down there to feel the cool water and soft sands on my fingertips, but for now, I just keep walking.

When I reach the end of the next glass corridor, I turn right to face a set of double doors. There's no point in turning back now, so I go ahead and open it, but when I do, an ear-splitting beeping sound goes off. Instinctively, I cover my ears with my palms and cower, but keep my eyes open to look for the danger. Two guards dressed in black come towards me and before I can run they take my arms and drag me out of the room and back down the hallway. They remind me too much of the dauntless guards and I struggle and writhe against them, but I don't have enough energy and they're too strong, so I give up and let myself be dragged back the way I came. "Oh there you are" I hear from behind me. I turn my head to see Naomi, shaking water off from her hands. "This is Tris Prior, I've been assigned to her." She says and holds out a small card to the guards with what looks like my face on it. "I'll take her from here thank you."

"Fine, but make sure she doesn't go anywhere without supervision again." One of the guards says and walks away with the other. We watch them go and after a moment she says "should've remembered about your 'erudite' curiosity." And walks away. The words remind me of what someone at the bureau said to me once, and the bureau is evil. I feel my face get hot and almost shout at her "Yeah well maybe you should have! I mean you probably spent most of the time of my life watching me grow up and it looks like you barely even care!" I slump against the round wall to my left and lean my head against the glass. She comes towards me and jams her thumb into a button on an elevator in front of me that I didn't even notice was there before. "Unlike a lot of people at the Bureau" she says "I didn't spend my time looking at what was going on in Chicago, so I actually don't know that much about you. David told me a couple of weeks ago that I would be assigned to you now and that I should start watching you to find more out about you and your personality. I knew that you had arrived there beyond the wall but with my work I never got the chance to go and meet you. I wouldn't be allowed to anyway, what with you camping out with all of your friends in the same room. They're supposed to think that you're dead, and if David's plan works out right then they will, and you will too."

The elevator arrives and opens and I follow her inside, the doors closing behind us. We stand there in silence, listening to the quiet rumble it makes. I turn over in my mind what she said about the bureau, and my death, and my friends. _'They're supposed to think that you're dead, and if David's plan works out right then they will, and you will too.'_ So it's only part of a plan for me to think that I'm dead, and that means that people like Caleb and Christina will think I'm dead, and Tobias will have to live for however long thinking that I'm gone forever. I try my best to push that thought aside because thinking of Tobias and of how much pain he's going to be in threatens to tear me apart. But I still can't help but miss him. Even the way his ears stick out and his hooked nose, and his deep blue eyes, a peculiar colour. Our memories together, all of it. As far as I know, there's no easy way out of here for me with the extremely high security measures and even if I did find a way out, where would I go? I'm in the middle of a forest and have no idea where this place – Oregon, apparently – is. Another tear falls down my cheek and I sniff, accidentally catching Naomi's attention. "You're killing him" I say to her, meeting her eyes. But she just looks back down at her shoes and says "I know." The doors open.

"You know? Then why aren't you doing anything about it? A helpful start would be getting me out of this awful place!" I say angrily as I follow her down the next hallway to our left. She says nothing as we ascend the stairs at the end of the corridor, but when we reach the top there is a ladder, an iron trapdoor above it. The room above it is not made of glass, but is dark and empty. She places a foot and a hand on two different rungs of the ladder and looks back at me to say "you like heights don't you?" with a faint smile. I cross my arms stubbornly. "What's going on?"

"Follow me and I'll tell you."

I stand there in silence again.

"Look, Tris…" her voice lowers to a whisper. "I'm going to tell you, but with cameras everywhere around here the roof is the only place safe enough to do it. They don't have any cameras up there and even ones close by wouldn't be able to pick up the sound because of the wind. Please trust me on this."

Her voice reminds me of those times I spoke to Tobias, asking him to trust me. I wanted him to, pleaded him to, though he didn't and it was unlikely that he would. But he should have in the end, so I go with her on this and follow her up the ladder. The next room is dank, with a few leaks in the roof and some moss growing on walls. They make me think of the cool underground tunnels in dauntless headquarters. There's also a large, gaping hole in the ceiling, large enough for two people to fit into, and a ladder that leans against its edge. Naomi is already mostly up it, clambering onto the platform, and my fingers fumble against the metal as they find their grip. Today, memories seem today be pouring into my head like someone's filled a bucket with them and is tipping it into my brain. Right now, I remember climbing the ladder onto the roof of the Hancock building behind Uriah before going zip lining.

When I've stumbled onto the roof, the night air fills my lungs, and I look up to see a clear, starry night. It's all that I see, because here in the forest, the night makes everything pitch black. Except the sea, which glistens in the moonlight. It was still a little different in Chicago, because of the Erudite keeping their lights on to study and experiment. The sky looks extra specially beautiful now. "Right." Naomi says, pulling me towards the edge. I sit, and she crouches keeping a hand on the floor to steady her, though I swing my legs over the edge without thinking. "I have to tell you this quickly, because we're supposed to be back at your cell soon, and it's a lot to take in, so listen carefully. When you got to the weapons lab, you weren't there alone, David was there. I know he said that you wouldn't make it out of there alive, but he just wanted you to think that, as it's the beginning of these experiments by seeing your reaction to thinking you were dead, the purpose being the amount of time you take to figure the answer out, if you do. It's really just like measuring the time it takes for you to realise that you're in a simulation."

David.

"Are you getting this?"

I nod.

"So obviously he had a gun, but what the gun was loaded with wasn't bullets, it was needles. They contain very powerful serums that induce pain, hallucinations, and after that, knock you out completely. So whatever you saw - probably your own blood – wasn't real. Well, the blood on your hands was, but I don't know where that came from. Maybe they were scraped or cut in the rush to get you out of the bureau. What did you see?"

"My mother." I say through gritted teeth.

"Oh." She looks around warily. "I'm sorry Tris." Her hand touches my arm, and it stays there. "This experiment is being kept as a _very,_ very highly protected secret. So much that David had to use technology to turn another person into a version of him too, and he knew that they were going to release the memory serum anyway, so it didn't matter what this person knew or not; it worked out perfectly for him in the end. Back at the bureau they spared a dead body of a small girl and used lots and lots of technology to make her look exactly like you. It's going to be shown to other people, including your friends, to make them convinced that you're dead. This all needs to happen to keep the mission top secret, so that no one suspects anything. You're genetically pure Tris, one of the strongest in the world for all we know. We – they – need to run hundreds of tests on you to check if you're the right subject. The succeeded product of the Chicago experiment. That's why all of this is happening, and why it matters so much."

By the end, my muscles feel numb, and it takes me a minute to be able to wiggle my foot, but I manage it. So I stand, and walk away.


End file.
